The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Grid Deployment Office, through a Partnership Intermediary Agreement, has opened an initial funding opportunity for up to $30 million available to accelerate the interconnection process for new energy generation through the introduction of artificial intelligence techniques. The new Artificial Intelligence for Interconnection (AI4IX) program will develop partnerships between software developers, grid operators (including Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) and Power Marketing Administrations), and energy project developers to modernize the interconnection application process and significantly reduce the time required to review, approve, and commission new generation interconnections across the country.

Objective

This opportunity seeks to apply existing AI algorithms to the interconnection application process to more quickly identify deficient applications and rapidly notify applicants for resolution. (Note: the size of the region can be a single utility territory or encompass an area served by multiple Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs). For example, AI software trained on a library of accurate documentation and application materials can review interconnection applications for the required site control documentation and flag errors within submitted supporting documents. Documenting site control for interconnection is a particularly challenging issue for project developers due to the different stakeholders, property laws, and grid facility access requirements for each generator project. After identifying application errors, the software would then notify the applicant that their documentation is not sufficient and why, enabling them to quickly respond to the specific issues. By deploying AI, the precision and speed in identifying documentation issues and providing specific reasons to enable timely resolutions or correction can improve over time.

Opportunity Announcement

Interconnection queues are long and growing. Interconnection requests can take up to seven years to realize the projects, and the 2024 edition of LBNL’s “All Queued Up” report indicates interconnection queues have continued to increase over the past year.

Technology providers are currently working on accelerating the processes around cluster identification and model preparation, model computation, and model interpretation and reanalysis. This aligns with the objectives of FERC Order 2023. One area that is not being addressed, and the purpose of this opportunity announcement is the application submittal process and number of deficiencies reported which delays the initiation of any analysis. For example, certain RTOs have indicated that over 90% of the interconnection applications they receive are deemed “deficient,” and it is the labor associated with getting applications to acceptability that most heavily delays the development and analysis of models.

The Grid Deployment Office will fund multiple regional-focused consortium of utility companies, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and RTOs over an initial two-year performance period. The grant funds are intended to support the implementation of models, tools and methodologies that would address deficiency reporting in the application process for interconnection studies.

Alignment with Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2x)

To address the interconnection challenges, DOE launched i2X in 2022. The i2X program partners with utilities, grid operators, state and local governments, clean energy industry, energy justice groups, nonprofits, and others to focus on four key elements: stakeholder engagement, data collection and analysis, strategic roadmap development, and technical assistance.

In 2024, the i2X team published the draft DOE transmission interconnection roadmap. This roadmap highlighted solutions for stakeholders seeking to collaboratively improve interconnection processes in the short, medium, and long term. To address these challenges, organized under four goals, these solutions aim to deploy clean resources rapidly, equitably, and reliably. The four roadmap goals are as follows:

• Goal 1: Increase data access and transparency, centering on improving data availability that informs interconnection decision-making and monitoring of queue reform outcomes.
• Goal 2: Improve process and timing, focusing on the process of interconnection itself and providing solutions to streamline interconnections as the number of applications remains high.
• Goal 3: Promote economic efficiency, seeking to improve interconnection outcomes that meet market and policy objectives at lower costs to ratepayers, with fair allocation between producers and consumers and among states and Tribes.
• Goal 4: Maintain a reliable grid, focusing on prevention of unnecessary system disturbance

This funding opportunity solicits proposals for projects to expedite future interconnections of clean energy systems into the transmission system while preserving data security and system reliability. Awardees under this opportunity will develop tools and methods that specifically address the following DOE transmission interconnection roadmap goals:

• Increasing data access and transparency, centering on improving data availability that informs interconnection decision-making and monitoring of queue reform outcomes. (Goal 1: Solutions 1.1 and 1.3)
• Improve process and timing, focusing on the process of interconnection itself and providing solutions to streamline interconnections as the number of applications remains high. (Goal 2: Solution 2.3 and 2.7)

Topic Areas for consideration

Proposed projects should leverage existing software platforms, including through model tuning, and may consider tasks including but not limited to:

• Application intake automation: development and demonstration of tools and solutions that automate the application process. Over the past two decades, transmission providers have made important strides in automating interconnection processing, through the creation of online portals to handle interconnection requests and the development of software for managing interconnection queues. Continued and targeted automation of interconnection processes could enable transmission providers to handle larger volumes of interconnection requests in the future, by enabling them to process more requests without necessarily scaling up staff or resources.
• Tools to demonstrate site control: Verifying site control for applications tends to be a major driver of deficiency notifications and increased labor burden for staff. The inconsistencies across state, county, locality, utility, and RTO requirements for permitting and site control create a paradigm in which it is extremely difficult to satisfactorily address permit and site control requirements without the back-and-forth instruction from the RTO and/or utility/asset owner.
• Data transparency: Expanding and harmonizing tools across transmission providers could help reduce speculative interconnection requests by providing easy to use tools to resource developers and enhance equity and competition by reducing the transaction costs of uncovering and interpreting information for smaller and less established resource developers. (Interconnection roadmap)
• Outreach: Proposals should include tasks for outreach to pull stakeholders together to discuss solution pathways for accelerating the interconnection process through AI.

Eligibility

• Applicant is a non-profit organization with a valid 501(c)3 status under the under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3).
• Applicant is a U.S. for-profit organization that has expertise in climate change and/ or scenarios approaches that does not involve foreign partnerships to conduct the proposed analysis.
• Applicant must qualify as a domestic entity.
• Applicant must certify it is not owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of government of Country of Risk (currently China, Russia, North Korea and Iran).